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Description

Unprecedented in scope like its companion volume on the High Renaissance, Transformations, this sixth volume in the Architecture in Context series traces the development of architecture and decoration in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries – particularly the transformation of rationalist Classical ideals into the emotive, highly theatrical style known as Baroque and the further development away from architectonic principles to the free-ranging decorative style known as Rococo.

It begins with an outline of the politics of Absolutism and its opposite over the century from the Thirty Years’ War to the War of the Austrian Succession: this is illustrated with images largely chosen from the major artists of the day; a supplementary introduction outlines the cross-currents of painting in the early Baroque era. The first substantive section deals with the seminal masters active in Rome – Maderno, Cortona, Borromini and Bernini – and their contemporaries there, in Venice and in Piedmont. The second section deals with the seminal French masters – above all François Mansart, Louis Le Vau, Andre Le Nôtre, Jules-Hardouin Mansart and the latter’s followers who developed the Rococo style in the domestic field. The rest of the book is divided into three large sections: the Protestant North – the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Britain; the Divided Centre – the Catholic powers of central Europe and southern Germany, the Protestants of northern Germany and the Orthodox Russians; the Catholic South – the Iberian kingdoms and their dominions in southern Italy and the Americas.

Contents

Part 1: Seminal Italians 1. Inception of the High Baroque in Rome 2. The Style of the Church Triumphant 3. The Roman Baroque Church at its Apogee 4. Venice 5. Piedmont Part 2: Seminal French 1. France from Richelieu to Mazarin 2. Louis XIV and French Ascendancy 3. Régence and the Early Years of Louis XV Part 3: Northern Protestants 1. The Dutch and Scandinavians 2. Britain Part 4: Divided Centre and Orthodox East 1. Advance of Baroque between Two Wars 2. Imperial Baroque and its Austrian Monastic Derivative 3. Advanced Baroque and the Advent of Rococo 4. Exceptional Talent in Bohemia and Bavaria 5. From Augustan Dresden and Warsaw 6. From Berlin to Bayreuth 7. Russia: From Moscow to Saint Petersburg Part 5: The Catholic South and its New Worlds 1. Habsburg to Bourbon in Naples and Sicily 2. Habsburg to Bourbon in Spain 3. Palaces of the Southern Bourbons 4. The Golden Age of Portugal at Home and Abroad 5. Bourbon America Further Reading. Glossary. Index.